I am interested in making a patch style antenna that would be made of a copper (or other lightweight material) mesh weave material in the form of a sheet that can be sandwiched between an adhesive sheet and the wings surface or the fuselage itself. The shape of the "Patch" could be of various shapes or sizes depending on the surface area to work with or the wave propagation needed to be effective in the antennas use. Tx or Rx depending on the need. Does anyone have any experience in working with such designs? Maybe some tips or advice on how to...??
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I've had great success with a 'Moxon Rectangle' on the Rx, it's basically a 2 element yagi so has less directionality (120-180 degree) of a high element count yagi and is really easy to make. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1266148
A patch antenna on the aircraft would be too directional. Try a skew or dipole (which is still directional)
Remember on the ground you can have enormous antennas.......
I looked into this subject some time ago. I read some papers on making an carbon antenna. It worked, but the downside was that the antenna had very high resistance. You can google the words "uav conformal antenna".
This is the most interesting technology for making antennas I've seen --> http://www.mesoscribe.com/application-areas/conformal-and-integrate...
I think the easiest way to make an embedded antenna yourself is to get some copper foil. Lightly spray glue it onto some carrier. Cut the antenna traces in a cutting plotter. Carefully place the antenna between the layers of the laminate.
Now you also need a ground plane. Carbon should do fine as a ground plane. In a wing the antenna element and ground plane could be on the opposite sides of the wing (ground on top, traces on bottom surface). One could similarly embed the antenna into the fuse or stabilizers.
One would probably have to modify the design of a regular patch antenna for it to have good performance if placed onto a curved surface.